Risk register · entry
Q2 · The CoconutMyanmar earthquake
M7.7 on the well-known Sagaing Fault; unreinforced homes collapsed.
The rare, high-impact event that was always coming, and was always going to be called unforeseeable afterwards.
Why this quadrant
The Sagaing Fault is mapped and its behaviour is calculable. The 2016 building code is not enforced. What the actuarial view could not carry is that the state which would normally respond was fighting a civil war: the junta ran more than 550 air and artillery attacks in the two months after the quake, having declared a ceasefire.
The record
- Magnitude 7.7 (some sources 7.7-7.9), March 28 2025, 12:50 pm local time, Sagaing Fault, epicenter near Mandalaycertain
- Rupture length approximately 460 km along the Sagaing Fault; supershear rupture speedlikely
- AHA Centre count (as of April 8 2025): 3,645 fatalities, 148 missing, 4,817 injured in Myanmarlikely
- Some sources cite up to 5,352 dead in Myanmar plus 103 in Thailand and 1 in Vietnam (includes later toll revisions and Bangkok high-rise collapse)uncertain
- 157,000+ buildings identified as likely damaged across seven citieslikely
- Mandalay: 36% of buildings damaged; Woundwin: 73% of buildings damagedlikely
- At least 3 hospitals destroyed, 22 more damagedlikely
- ~200,000 people left homelesslikely
- World Bank: direct physical damage ~US$11 billion, ~14% of GDP; residential damage ~US$4.97 billion (45% of total)likely
- World Bank: earthquake to cut Myanmar FY2025/26 GDP growth by about 2.5 percentage points, ~US$2 billion output losslikely
- Junta launched 550+ aerial and artillery attacks in the two months after the quake despite declaring a ceasefirelikely
- 2016 Myanmar National Building Code cited as inadequately enforcedcertain
Sources
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